Adventures in the Wild West, APU-Style!

Skiing- Silver Star, BC.

Check out the latest APU video by my teammate Reese Hanneman. This time I was able to help a little by taking lots of race video during the men's 10km classic race in West Yellowstone, Montana (my first time taking race footage). I also jumped into a few of the night skiing shots at the beginning of the film. Thanks, Reese, for the great portrayal of our most recent team adventures!

I'm sidelined with a cold right now, so rather than training, I've been drinking lots of tea, sleeping, and willing my body to get better in advance of the classic sprint and 10km freestyle races this weekend at Sovereign Lakes here on Silver Star Mountain, BC, Canada. Stay tuned for more updates!

Life on the Road: Snowstorms, good eating, fresh corduroy, and endless K's...

Life doesn't get much better than this...

Blue skies and picturesque trees- the view from the trails this morning.

I'm over two and a half weeks and four races into two months of travel, training, and ski racing, and not even a recent lingering head cold has been able to bring down. So far I've experienced no shortage of: abundant snow (and snowstorms), camaraderie, holiday spirit, great food, fantastic training, successful racing, beautiful scenery, fast skis, and plentiful amounts of fun! Since mid-November I've been on the road with my APUNSC team. We started out in West Yellowstone, Montana, where an incredible snowstorm made for an exciting Thanksgiving weekend of race postponements, stranded race timers and TDs, stuck and unstuck vehicles, closed and re-opened roads and passes, and a particularly memorable morning of playing in the snow, followed by some incredibly successful APU race performances.

West Yellowstone, MT: mid-storm.

It was a great beginning to our trip, as the team showed that we were not only an incredibly cohesive group, but a well-trained, focused collection of athletes.

APU Ladies having FUN! A deck-jumping, snow-loving romp in the bottomless West Yellowstone powder.

The APU ladies after cleaning up in all four races (over three days) of the West Yellowstone SuperTour.

APU athletes eating well. Celebrating Thanksgiving early (ahead of the opening races). Overwhelmingly the best APU athlete-cooked turkey day dinner yet!

After a solid block of racing and an over-distance workout on the Rendezvous Ski Trails in West, we packed up our bags, our hundreds of pairs of skis, our wax benches, our massive quantities of leftover food... and began the annual pilgrimage north to Silver Star Mountain in the heart of British Columbia.

We couldn't have been more excited to see the... 100+ km of twice-daily groomed trails, fairy tale village, and signature Silver Star snow-loaded trees. This place is truly Nordic skier heaven!

We're several days into our training camp here in Silver Star. Intervals have hammered out at the race venue at Sovereign Lakes, but I've been hit my a little cold. After hard racing in West and two lengthy days of driving, my body needed a little rest and was sure to let me know. Luckily, this bug was short-lived, as I was able to get out on the trails today (after a couple of days of rest). It was a perfect day to get back onto the trails, with temps in the mid-20s F, blue skies and beautiful views of the rolling hills below the mountain. It was also a great opportunity to test some of my classic skis, which were delivered to West fresh from the grinder.

Getting a feel for both my new skis and my recently ground skis is always critical heading into the season, so that race ski selection is streamlined on race day. With the help of the APU wax staff and the support top-notch grinders this process has been very productive, and I've learned a ton about my fleet over the last couple weeks. After having excellent skis in all four races in West, it felt good to get out on a few pairs of classic boards today to get a feel for them in Silver Star snow conditions. With some good testing and a great ski under my belt today, and my cold winding down, I know I'll be ready to hit the race courses at Sovereign in a little less than a week!

Thanks for tuning in! Until my next post, happy trails!

West Yellowstone!

Hi from West Yellowstone, Montana! Today was our first "official" day on snow here (last night some of us got out for a super fun, informal, shake-the-legs-out headlamp ski). We hit the ground running (well, actually skiing) with a little moderate intensity to spark the body and also got some fun, easy skiing in as a team. We're psyched about our new uniforms for the season, and coach Erik did a girls photo shoot today as we were heading back to the car.

Yep, we're loving being here (and celebrating teammate Sadie Bjornsen's 21st Birthday today, fourth from right in the above photo)!

Monday we're celebrating team Thanksgiving early, and Wednesday the races kick off with skate and classic sprint prelims. More to come from West soon! Thanks to Erik Flora for taking the photos.

Handcrafted, Full Bodied

On the road (and in the air) again...

The snow is falling in West Yellowstone, Montana, and we're on our way to the first races of the season. The West Yellowstone Ski Festival is the tradition start of the North American race season, with four competitions taking place over the Thanksgiving holidays. This year we will be racing a classic AND a skate sprint prelim (on the same day), a 10km skate, and a 5km classic. APU will be out in full force, sporting our new Swix blue uniforms (thanks, Swix!). This is the biggest APU team yet to attend the West Yellowstone SuperTour races, with almost 20 athletes in attendance!

Tonight we stay in Bozeman, MT after a long day of travel, and tomorrow we make a big Costco run for our week in West (including all our Thanksgiving food). After our opening weekend in West, we head to Silver Star, British Columbia- one of my personal favorite race (and training) venues. From there we'll compete in Rossland, BC before we have a short break for the Christmas holidays. During that downtime, I'll be flying back East to spend a week with my parents, brother, and grandmother in Vermont before US Nationals are contested in Rumford, ME at the beginning of January. The two month trip will finish off with more SuperTour races in Lake Placid, NY in the middle of January.

Since I'm going to be away for two months, the last few days has been hectic finishing up school, training, and preparing to leave. It's a challenge to pack for racing and Christmas, anticipating both cold and warm weather throughout my travels... but it's fun at the same time. Being on the road is exciting, as is the anticipation that goes along with the beginning of a new season! It's exciting, because I feel prepared to hit the snow.

I'm psyched to have a great team surrounding me, great coaching and wax support, top-notch and generous sponsors (in Swix Wax, Poles, and Accessories; Fischer Skis; Salomon Boots and Bindings; Rudy Project Eyewear; Nordic Ultratune Stone Grinding; and PowerBar). I'd also like to thank Carlile Transportation Systems- my main financial sponsor- for their unwavering support over many years. Also, big kudos to GCI- my telecommunications sponsor, hunting guide, Rob Holt- my Alaskan wild game provider, and my doctor, Ruth Higdon. Last, but not least, I am so appreciative of the love and support of my parents, extended family, and boyfriend. I couldn't be where I am without all the help and encouragement I receive!

To wrap up this post, make sure to check out the great video (posted above) that my teammate, Reese Hanneman, created recently (thanks, Reese, for letting me re-post your awesome video!). He's got some artistic talent. This definitely has my vote as the best APU ski film yet! Most of the footage comes from Hatcher Pass where we did much of our early winter preparations... Way cool!

SNOW!

Yep, winter has hit Anchorage! We skied at Hatcher Pass, north of Anchorage, last week, and I did intervals on the Spencer Loop on Wednesday. This afternoon I went for a distance ski on the Anchorage hillside. It was a beautiful evening for a ski...

Getting ready for winter...

Today I spent my day getting ready for winter in two ways... Just like every other Sunday, my day began with an over-distance (OD) workout. After breakfast, and as soon as it was light enough to see the trees outside my living room window (something that's happening later and later these days), I was out on the road rollerskiing. This morning I went right from my front door, completing one massive loop around the Anchorage Hillside, returning home just in time for lunch.

Just like every other day, the focus of my morning was training- getting my body in tip-top racing fitness- so that come winter and the start of racing season at the end of November, I'll be ready to ski fast. Today my OD was on classic rollerskis (no r-ski photos, unfortunately), but a few weekends ago I went on an awesome fall mountain run with my teammates. It just happened to be one incredibly photo-worthy workout that I just can't resist sharing (see below)...

Mountain run OD with the APU ladies (and Reese). Thanks Reese for the great photos!

2.5 hours cruising through some beautiful Alaskan terrain. I can't think of a better way to spend a Sunday morning! (Reese Hanneman photo)

Today was not one of the glorious, sunny autumn days of which we've had many. All the same, it was a perfect day for good, long workout! The fall colors that have greeted me on my last few Sunday runs are now gone. And on this particular Sunday- for the first time this fall- the forecast was for snow. Although it turned out to be not quite cold enough for that type of precipitation, it sure felt like winter isn't far off.

With the changing seasons on my mind, a different kind of "getting-ready-for-winter" activity followed my OD. My mom, boyfriend and I smoked and canned wild Alaskan salmon for the winter! Um...um!

My mom came down from Talkeetna for the weekend, and just as we normally do, we created ourselves a project! A while back we decided that this weekend was going to be salmon canning weekend. With 40+ new 2010 red salmon in the freezer from this summer's dipnetting trip and still a ton of salmon from '09 hanging around, we decided that it was time to get out the smokers and canners and get to work.

Last night we sliced all the fillets into strips, made a huge vat of brine, soaked, rinsed, and then air dried the fish to be ready for today's work. This morning we began the smoking process. While I rollerskied around the Anchorage Hillside, my mom took care of the fish smoking, and by the time I returned home we were ready to put the smoked salmon in jars, seal them up, and pressure cook them for 2+ hours.

Three pressure cookers-loads and 41 jars of canned smoked salmon later, we'd made another step towards winter-preparedness. OD down, salmon processing down... Today was a productive day!

Thanks to my super Mom and fabulous boyfriend for embarking on this great project with me! I'm pumped to eat canned salmon all winter long. It's, without a doubt, the fuel of champions!